Funny Stuff

It sounds adventurous and there are bits of very old U2 and bits
of not so old U2, in league with sounds more common in Brooklyn at
the moment than Dublin.

You can easily hear the influence of producers Brian Eno and
Daniel Lanois. Definitely an improvement on How To Dismantle An
Atomic Bomb. Here is a hurried first response and don't hold me
to the lyrical references.

Track one: No Line On The Horizon

Buzzy guitars and offkilter Enoesque noises vie for attention
while Bono strains for effect as he reflects both the tension and
the intensity of the song. The chorus (not a big one; more a
devolving of the verse) retains the tension but puts it in a
gentler setting. Bono seems to be singing to, or about, a girl, not
for the last time on the album, but it's not easy to decipher.

Track two: Magnificent

More of those odd sounds behind treated guitars and synthesisers
and the song opens in two or would now be called "classic U2", the
familiar 80s quick marching rhythm and the Edge's exploratory
guitar lines. The most traditional sounding song on the album has
Bono declaring that "I was born to sing for you/I didn't have a
choice" before confessing that "only love can leave such a
mark".

Track three: Moment Of Surrender

A moodier track with irregular hand percussion (or a loop, or
both) picking away at the edges of a bed of synthesisers and
violin. The emotional tone is late '80s U2; the musical palette,
with hints of electronica, is more early '90s. Before those richly
layered Eno/Lanois-signature backing vocals arrived late in the
piece Bono goes from enigmatic: "I tied myself with wire to let the
horses run free/playing with fire till the fire plays with me" (I
think) to matters closer to the heart: "it's not if I believe in
love but if love believes in me".

Track four: Unknown Caller

Some really interesting ambient sounds in a late, late night
setting more concerned with atmosphere than asserting itself. It's
3.33am "in a place of no consequence or company" and he's "speed
dialling with no signal at all". The lyrics seem more
impressionistic, disconnected and with a touch of David Bowie in
the chanting underneath. And is that French horns at the end? Not
usually heard on a U2 album.

Track five: I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

Mixed marriages don't always work, but should, seems to be the
theme. "She's a rainbow and she likes the quite life/I'll go crazy
if I don't go crazy tonight." This is a straight out pop song with
reverb guitars and Bono in high croon. It's also a U2 track they
could do in their sleep, but no less attractive for that. The
question is will it last as long as some of the others?

Track six: Get On Your Boots

The first single and perplexing some already. A mess of dirty
guitars and urgent energy play through electronic bibs and bobs.
You can hear Fly-era U2, with a little less edge, but here
something niggling through earlier songs becomes clearer: they have
been listening to Brooklyn's art rockers TV On For Radio. It makes
some sense: TV On The Radio spent their youth listening to Eno and
Bowie too.

Track seven: Stand Up Comedy

A strutting 70s guitar finds the Edge channelling his inner Marc
Bolan while that Brooklyn fractured dance of rock feels returns
(and then becomes almost pure Madchester ecstasy nightclub). The
"song" runs out a little earlier than the groove does but it
doesn't seem fatal at all.

Track eight: FEZ - Being Born

This seems to be two songs hooked together, one a collection of
odd sounds and shapes, the other a pulsing rock number which
becomes something else again when the sonic oddness returns prior
to a drifting away ending.

Track nine: White As Snow

A ballad not just inspired by but evoking wide spaces and open
skies. There are low rumbles and darting sounds, brass even. Could
this be U2 aiming for Bruce Springsteen in his solo
tales-of-the-desert mode?

Track 10: Breathe

This is pushier at immediately, coming with a bit of attitude.
Did Bono really just say he is "not somebody's cockatoo"? He
definitely says "I'm running down the road like loose electricity
while the band in my head plays a striptease" and it's an apt
description of this land of atmosphere and aggression.

Track 11: Cedars Of Lebanon

Lyrically and musically strongly reminiscent of a film noir
narration (Bono as Walter Neff? Why not?), the central character is
a man cut off from affection and life in general. Some really
interesting harmonies - Eno at work again - and a closing set of
lines worth pondering for implications. "Choose your enemies well
for they will define you ... they are going to last with you longer
than your friends".

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